456 : MEALS MEDICINAL. 
young man the dinners were wonderfully solid, hot, and stimu- 
lating. The menu of a grand dinner was thus composed : 
Mulligatawny and turtle soups were the first dishes placed 
before you ; a little lower the eye met with the familiar salmon 
at one end of the table, and the turbot, surrounded by smelts, 
at the other. The first course was sure to be followed by a 
saddle of mutton, or a piece of roast beef; and then you could 
take your oath that fowls, tongue, and ham would as assuredly 
succeed as darkness after day. The universally adored, and 
ever popular boiled potato, produced at the very earliest period 
of the dinner, was eaten with everything up to the moment 
when the sweets appeared. Our vegetables, the best in the 
world, were never honoured by an accompanying sauce, and 
generally came to the table cold. A prime difficulty to overcome 
was the placing on your fork, and finally in your mouth, some 
hali-dozen different eatables which occupied your plate at the 
same time; for example, your plate would contain, say, a slice 
of turkey, a piece of stuffing, a sausage, pickles, a slice of tongue, 
cauliflower, potatoes, and perhaps something more. A perpetual 
thirst seemed to come over people, both men and women, as 
soon as they had tasted their soup; and from that moment 
everybody was taking wine with everybody else until the close 
of dinner, and it was such wine as produced that kind of cordiality 
which frequently passes into stupefaction. From the bazaar 
of all these good things, according to habit and custom, a 
judicious, and careful selection had to be -made, with the 
endeavour to place a portion of each in your mouth at the same 
moment. In fact, it appeared to me that we used to do all our 
compound cookery between our jaws. How all this eating and 
drinking ended was obvious, from the prevalence of gout, and 
the necessity (for everyone) of making the pill-box their constant 
bedroom companion.” 
“ Better,” said Solomon, the wisest of men, “is a dinner of 
herbs where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith.’ 
Miss Horace Smith, of Rejected Addresses parentage, went on 
an occasion to the theatre at Brighton, and being asked after 
returning home if she had enjoyed herself, replied, “ It was all 
dull ; the house was nearly empty : there was no one in the stalls, 
not even an ox.” As to relish for a meal, the French proverb | 
“ Pappetit vient en mangeant”’ embodies an indisputable truth— 
“Often will the relish increase as the meal progresses; 
